TRUMP TWEETS MULTIPLE FALSEHOODS OVER ONLY TWO DAYS

… The president’s nickname should be “Lyin Trump”

Trump tweets false claims on issues from Puerto Rico to Obamacare.

Here is a Quote from the “Fact Checkers” at the Washington Post: “President Trump’s Twitter feed is like a fact-checking buffet, with all the different kinds of false or misleading claims from which to choose.”

It seems that since the release of the Mueller Report, the president has gone even more off his wheels with more and more falsehoods.  He apparently feels that he has been given an approval to lie even more.

Here is a selected group of tweets from only 2 days of false or misleading “Trumpism” lies:

Over these past two days, Trump tweeted a slew of false claims on immigration, Obamacare, the census, disaster relief for Puerto Rico and the Russia investigation. Each of them is worth a closer look:

April 2, 2 tweets: “Puerto Rico got 91 Billion Dollars for the hurricane, more money than has ever been gotten for a hurricane before, & all their local politicians do is complain & ask for more money. The pols are grossly incompetent, spend the money foolishly or corruptly, & only take from USA ….

The best thing that ever happened to Puerto Rico is President Donald J. Trump. So many wonderful people, but with such bad Island leadership and with so much money wasted. Cannot continue to hurt our Farmers and States with these massive payments, and so little appreciation!” 

The president gets many things wrong in this pair of tweets. Puerto Rico so far has only received over $11 billion out of nearly $41 billion in funds that have been appropriated.  As we have detailed before, Trump’s $91 billion figure includes $50 billion in additional estimated liabilities that could emerge over the next 20 years, but that’s a figure subject to change. 

Trump suggests that the money has already been received but that’s simply wrong. By the end of 2019, the Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates, Puerto Rico will have received about $21 billion.

The federal aid after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 amounted to $120 billion, though Louisiana’s share alone amounts to $76 billion. Hurricane Maria was Puerto Rico’s worst natural disaster in nearly a century, and the government there was already dealing with near insolvency.

With certain slurs such as “they only take from the USA” and “versus our farmers,” Trump doesn’t seem to know that Puerto Ricans are full US citizens. They are all US citizen and they pay federal taxes such as Social Security and Medicare.

Trump suggests that PR’s relief money has been misspent, a point that was stated by White House spokesman Hogan Gidley on MSNBC: “He gave them a lot of money. They mismanaged and misused that money. It hurts their people. That is what he is upset about.” Gidley did not respond to a request for an explanation, but in another part of the interview, he referred to “food rotting in the ports.”

Those reports concerned food, water and baby supplies, those are donated by private entities and nonprofit groups.  Those supplies were discovered at a state elections office, but the incident did not involve any federal aid.  There are no reports concerning malfeasance in the use of federal aid money in connection with Hurricane Maria and Puerto Rico.

Axios has reported that Trump was furious after reading an article in the Wall Street Journal that said “Puerto Rico bond prices soared . . . after the federal oversight board that runs the US territory’s finances released a revised fiscal plan that raises expectations for disaster funding and economic growth.”  

The president obviously misinterpreted the article and concluded that island officials were using disaster funds to pay down debt.  But neither Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló, nor the federal board that oversees the territory’s finances have stated that federal disaster relief funds would not be used to directly pay off debts. In addition, Governor Rosselló and other local leaders have actively advocated against such a move.

April 2 tweet: "After many years (it’s been decades), Mexico is apprehending large numbers of people at their Southern Border, mostly from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador. They have ALL been taking US money for years, and doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for us, just like the Democrats in Congress!”  Trump often accuses Mexico and Central American countries of doing little or nothing to stem the flow of immigration to the United States.

But that’s wrong, and here’s the truth:

Mexico deported 436,125 individuals from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras between January 2015 and September 2018.  This is according to the Mexican newspaper El Universal.

From fiscal years 2015 to 2018, the United States deported 321,468 individuals from those same three countries, this is according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement statistics.

Mexican authorities are going to deploy security forces to a “containment belt north of the Guatemalan border”. Mexico in 2018 also agreed to host in Mexico those migrants who are applying for asylum in the United States.  This is as their cases are pending in US courts, as the Washington Post reported.

El Salvador, meanwhile, has been praised by top US immigration officials for effective use of aid money.  El Salvador halved its murder rate, from 102.67 per 100,000 in 2015, to 50.28 per 100,000 last year. There were more than 72,000 apprehensions of Salvadorans trying to cross the US border in 2016, but the number fell by more than half in 2018, to fewer than 32,000, as The Post has reported.

“What [El Salvador is] doing is working, both on the security front and on the economic opportunity front,” US Customs and Border Protection, Commissioner McAleenan recently stated.

April 1 tweet:  “Everybody agrees that Obamacare doesn’t work. Premiums & deductibles are far too high — Really bad HealthCare! Even the Dems want to replace it, but with Medicare for all, which would cause 180 million Americans to lose their beloved private health insurance.”

Democrats absolutely disagree that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) does not work.  The number of people without health insurance has sharply declined since it was passed in 2010. Some Democrats have proposed ways to reduce out-of-pocket costs, mainly by increasing subsidies and increasing the number of people who would qualify for them.

Some Democrats running for president have proposed Medicare-for-All, which is basically a “single-payer plan”.  It would be like making Medicare, the government plan today for people over 65, available to people younger than 65. The version proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) would eliminate private insurance and would then offer insurance through the federal government.

Trump’s numbers for private insurance as expected, are incorrect.  The Census Bureau says that in 2017, 217 million Americans had private insurance, with 181 million covered through their employer and 52 million directly purchasing insurance.  Meanwhile, 123 million Americans are covered through government plans, such as Medicare, Medicaid or the military health system.

April 1 tweet:  “Can you believe that the Radical Left Democrats want to do our new and very important Census Report without the, all-important: “Citizenship Question”.  [The] Report would be meaningless and a waste of the $Billions that it costs to put together!” 

The Trump administration wants to add a question to the 2020 Census asking whether respondents are US citizens. Trump claims the census would be “meaningless” without this “all-important question.” But numerous experts, including those in the Census Bureau, say that adding a citizenship question would depress response rates by intimidating immigrants fearful of their potential deportation. (The census is supposed to count all US residents, not just US citizens.)

More than a dozen states, cities and a number of groups sued in 2018 to block this question.  It is obviously an attempt by the Trump administration to weaken the political power of heavily Democratic states with large immigrant populations.  Census data is used for allocating federal funds, for drawing legislative districts and reapportioned congressional seats.

The citizenship question has been blocked by two federal judges and is pending before the US Supreme Court. The lower-court judges had serious concerns about Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross’s decision-making process.  Ross oversees the Census Bureau and overruled career officials who had recommended not adding the question.

The judges said Ross’s decision to add the question was based on a false premise.  Ross testified in Congress that the Justice Department “initiated the request” for the citizenship question to gather better data to protect voting rights for minorities.

However, it was later revealed in court proceedings that it was Ross himself that was behind the question and he had pressured the Justice Dept. to make the formal request.

The two judges also mentioned violations of the Administrative Procedures Act and the possibility of an undercount.  This is according to career Census Bureau officials and other experts. One judge actually found that the question violated the US Constitution.

In addition, the census department removed the citizenship question after 1950.

April 2 tweet: "In 1998, Rep. Jerry Nadler strongly opposed the release of the Starr Report on Bill Clinton. No information whatsoever would or could be legally released. But with the NO COLLUSION Mueller Report, which the Dems hate, he wants it all. NOTHING WILL EVER SATISFY THEM!”

Trump continues to goes back and forth on whether special counsel Robert Mueller III’s nearly 400-page report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential obstruction of justice by the president should be released to the public.

On March 16, after the House voted 420 to 0 to release the report, Trump tweeted: “I told leadership to let all Republicans vote for transparency. Makes us all look good and doesn’t matter.” On March 20, he said “I don’t mind” when asked whether the public has a right to see the Mueller report. “I mean, frankly, I told the House, ‘If you want, let them see it,’ ” Trump said.

However, it’s obvious that Trump does mind.  On that April 2, Trump brought up old comments from Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who opposed the full release of independent counsel Kenneth Starr’s report on President Bill Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. “It’s grand jury material. It represents statements which may or may not be true by various witnesses. Salacious material. All kinds of material that it would be unfair to release,” Nadler said in 1998, as The Post reported.

Now Trump is in the White House, the president says that Nadler has changed his tune.

But there are some very key differences here.

Kenneth Starr was required to delivered his full, unredacted report to Congress in 1998, complete with grand jury testimony.  Congress debated how much of the report to release to the public.

Attorney General William Barr plans to redact some information from Mueller’s report, such as grand jury material, before turning it over to Congress. Democrats are seeking access to all of Mueller’s findings and underlying evidence.

April 2 tweet: "Robert Mueller was a God-like figure to the Democrats, until he ruled No Collusion in the long awaited $30,000,000 Mueller Report.” 

As reported, Mueller is careful to break down direct and indirect costs from his investigation, and Mueller’s costs are far below what those independent counsels spent investigating Clinton.

Mueller through September 2018 had reported $25.2 million in costs.  This figure will rise when the final costs are released. But Mueller also made a lot of money for the government, by seizing properties owned by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. 

Independent journalist Marcy Wheeler has estimated the value of Manafort’s seized assets at $46 million.

The reality is that if the president were being paid for all the Pinocchio’s he’s earned since he started running for president, today he would be as wealthy as he falsely claims he is.

Copyright G. Ater 2019